Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are known for lighting purposes and display applications, and typically comprise an anode on a substrate, and a cathode thereover with, arranged between them, organic layers comprising at least one light-emitting layer.
In OLEDs, distinction is made between those which emit light in one direction and those which emit light in two directions. One-side emitting OLEDs may be formed as so-called “bottom emitters” in which the light is emitted through the substrate lying opposite the encapsulation, or as so-called “top emitters,” in which the light is emitted through the encapsulation. Two-side emitting OLEDs are formed simultaneously as a bottom emitter and top emitter. If all the layers of a two-side emitting OLED are configured to be transparent, then the two-side emitting OLED is also referred to as a transparent OLED.
Since OLEDs contain materials sensitive to corrosion, for example, due to moisture and/or oxygen, they need to be protected by an encapsulation.
From DE 11 2009 002 034 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,692,610, for example, OLEDs are known which comprise an encapsulation consisting of a glass cover, which has a cavity in which a drying agent is arranged and which can be fastened by an adhesive bead.
Furthermore, for example, from WO 2009/095006 a thin-film encapsulation which comprises a combination of layers applied by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known.
For thin-film encapsulations, starting materials (precursors) containing halogen, which are known for a short process time, for example, BBr3, SiCl4, TiCl4 and TaCl5, are often used for production. However, due to their breakdown products, for instance HBr in the case of BBr3 and HCl in the case of SiCl4, TiCl4 and TaCl5, starting materials containing halogen may, for example, entail damage to the cathode so that the encapsulation effect of the thin-film encapsulation may even be completely lost. As protection against such damage to the cathode by starting materials containing halogen, an Al2O3 layer is conventionally used as an interlayer on the cathode. This layer, however, has only a moderately high refractive index of about 1.6 so that optimal light output or transparency cannot be achieved in the case of OLEDs configured as top emitters, or to be transparent.
It could therefore be helpful to provide an organic light-emitting component having a thin-film encapsulation arrangement. It could also be helpful to provide a method of producing an organic light-emitting component.